Another Life
by Dew Poem
Summary: AU. What if Snow and David both made it through the wardrobe? Told from Emma's perspective as she grows up with her family- until tragedy strikes when she is fifteen.
1. Chapter 1

Emma's always known she is special.

It starts with her earliest memory. Her mother and father are whispering to her. They're telling her stories about bandits and shepherds and saviours that are wonderful and exciting, and she stares up into their faces, believing every word they say.

She's three when her brother is born. He is Nicholas Leo Swan, which she thinks is a long name for the tiny thing that sits in her lap and looks at her with wide eyes for a few precious minutes before falling asleep. Her parents smile as they introduce him to her, and she thinks she's the luckiest sister in the world.

Though they've now grown to a family of four, the stories continue.

When she's five, two things happen. The first is that she gets a sister, Eva Redell Swan. Nicko is bouncing up and down in excitement, and her mother is smiling with tears in her eyes as her father hands Emma her new sister.

The second thing is that she starts school, and on her very first day learns that apparently it isn't normal to talk to birds or believe in curses.

Which, in her opinion, sucks.

She cries when she comes home, and her mother consoles her by pulling her into her lap and telling her a story about a princess who didn't believe in herself and the prince who convinced her to. Her father arrives from work an hour later and grins down at her while carrying Nicko on his shoulders. He tells her he's got something special for his little girl and pulls out two wooden swords from the boot of their beat up old car.

They're the best gift she's ever gotten.

That day she starts learning how to swordfight. This is apparently another thing that is not normal, and she loses the few friends she has. _Who needs friends anyway_, she thinks. She has Eva and Nicko and she has her amazing mother and father, and they're the only people she needs in the world.

Her lessons are every week, and while at first Nicko only watches, he manages to weasel his way into it by the time he's four. She loves the sword, the feel of balance and power that it gives her and she relishes the feel of victory when she defeats Nicko in a duel. Nicko's also quite good, but he's got two years' experience less than her, and besides, he's a _boy _and so doesn't stand a chance.

Her mother watches fondly as she cradles Eva and promises Emma that when's she's a bit bigger she'll teach her how to use a bow. That sounds really exciting, but she doesn't dwell on it too long because Nicko's almost winning, and she has to parry a particularly fierce blow.

Life isn't always fun, however. They barely have enough money to get by. Her mother works two jobs, babysitting during the day and waitressing at a diner on weekends. Her father works at the nearby farm and covers for any absentees at the animal shelter. The jobs don't pay well, but they take care of the bills. There are also rumours from the neighbours, whispers of how her parents turned up on the side of a highway with no money or ID. Her mother shakes these allegations off like the queen she really is, and her father tells Emma that it doesn't matter what other people say because she always has her family.

Sometimes it's difficult to have that much faith. There's no denying that her parents are different. They barely understand technology, and have had no formal education. Their only car was bought only after they realised how much regular people expected them to have one.

But Emma understands why they are different. They are a king and queen after all, and kings and queens can hardly be expected to know how to use mobiles or to have gone to high school.

So they manage.

Emma turns ten, and her archery lessons start, as does Eva's swordfighting. Eva doesn't seem to like it as much as her siblings. Out of the three of them she's the gentlest and the quietest compared to fierce-spirited Emma and fun-loving Nicko. The three children of a legend. They make quite the trio: gentle raven-haired Eva, Nicko with his determination and protectiveness, and wild curly-haired Emma.

Emma likes archery. She ties her hair back in a single braid and shoots arrow after arrow _thwack, thwack, thwack_ into the target as her mother watches with pride. She learns tracking and self-defence, and is one of the girls the bullies at her school never go near. She still has no friends, but she's learnt to live with that by now.

Time passes.

She's fourteen when she first defeats her father in a duel, and the grins on both their faces have never been bigger.

They have a celebration at home. Her mother sings as she bakes a special dinner, Eva climbs adoringly into her lap, and Nicko gives her an impressed high-five. Her father is the proudest of all, though, and opens a case she has never seen before to show her a _real_ sword.

It'll be hers someday, he tells her.

She's fifteen when her word ends.

This is how it happens: Once or twice every year, her parents have gone on a two-or-three-day trip to search for their friends from their old land. They have never taken her along, because it's been too dangerous. They tell her that they'll take her before her twenty-eighth birthday. But this year it's different.

She waits four days.

A week.

A month.

They don't come back.

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**So, how was it? Should I continue?**

**Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

They're put in the foster system.

Well, of course they are. She knew it couldn't last forever, but that doesn't stop the complete terror Emma feels as she watches Eva and Nicko get into a car without her and ride away.

But she keeps up a smile. She waves to them until the car is out of sight, silently telling them to be strong, to never give up, to have faith.

And it's only when their last shouted goodbyes have faded does she allow a single tear to slip down her cheek.

For one long month, they had managed. Emma had done the shopping- she looked old enough to be out on her own. Nicko had helped out in the house. But it was Eva who had held them together. She was the optimistic one, the only person who could make all of them smile after a long day of keeping up appearances, of cooking and cleaning and working and fixing till their bones ached.

There was one hope that never went away. The hope that they would all come home one day to find their parents waiting in their tiny front room, their eyes shining with pride and joy as they saw how well their kids had done. Her mother would pick Eva up and whirl her around, laughing, before coming to her and Nicko and pulling them both close, whispering_ I love you_ and _I'm so proud of you_ and _you've gotten so big_. Her father would grin down at all three of them, clapping Nicko on the shoulder and asking her how his eldest princess had done. She would complain of course, saying she was too old to be called a princess, but he would just laugh at that as all of them headed to the kitchen. Her mother would make a celebratory dinner, and they would all eat it sitting on the floor as they exchanged stories of Evil Queens and cursed friends and, funnily enough, grocery shopping and school grades.

And every day, as she forged their parents' signatures on school forms, phoned up the diner and told them her mother was still sick and sent the electricity bills using money tucked away in jars, this hope had never left her.

All of that ended when Eva fell and sprained her ankle in school.

The teachers had called their parents so that Eva could be taken home. When no one answered, not on the tenth call nor on the fifteenth, they had begun questioning the ten year-old, and the whole sorry story was dragged out, piece by piece.

Emma had come home that day to find three policemen waiting in their front room.

They were rounded up immediately, and she could only watch helplessly as '_abandoned_' was stamped onto their case file and it was decided that they would go into the foster system once they discovered that there were no relatives. She could only watch helplessly- but she wanted to scream and scream and _scream_. Of course there were no relatives; all of them were stuck under a curse that she eventually has to break. And her parents didn't abandon her, they were searching for their friends and the Queen's probably done something to them so that they can't come back.

But she can't say any of this in front of them.

And so it's led up to this, where she sits on the sidewalk, having just said goodbye to her ten year old sister and her twelve year old brother as they are each taken to separate homes. Her social worker says that she might not see them for another three years.

She's not ready to agree with that.

But however much Emma tries, she is only fifteen, and there's not much that she can do.

She calls them as often as she can, which is usually whenever she gets sent to a home that allows them to use the phone. She can hear the loneliness and sadness in their voices, and the way they try to hide it from her makes her heart break several times over.

Nicko seems to be doing okay, all things considered. Both he and Emma have had years of training with the one-time most feared bandit of the Enchanted Forest, and can take care of themselves pretty well.

She worries about Eva though. Her voice seems more fragile than she remembers, and more often than not the people at Eva's home don't allow her to talk. She tries telling their social worker about this, but as always, nothing comes up from their inquiries.

She turns sixteen. She grows into her height, and has to frequently judo-flip the boys who come begging after her. She enters high school and celebrates all three of their birthdays by blowing out a candle on a biscuit that she manages to sneak into her bag.

Every day, she wonders about her parents, and slowly the '_abandoned'_ on the file becomes bigger and bigger until there is almost nothing else left at all. Her parents left her. They cared more about their friends and their kingdom than their own flesh and blood. That is all there is to it.

She turns seventeen, and it's only one more year until she can get out of the system and get custody of Eva and Nicko. She counts down from three-hundred-sixty-five starting from her birthday, and gets a part time job so that she'll have some cash stored up by the time she's eighteen.

And then one day, something happens.

She's calling up Eva, and they're talking for the first time in two months when she hears someone yelling Eva's name on the other side of the line. Eva's stops talking mid-word and then quickly stammers out a goodbye before putting the phone down.

But before the receiver clicks on the other side, she hears her sister scream.

* * *

**I hope you liked this chapter.**

**A huge thank you to imaoncer4life and katiek121 for your reviews (they really mean a lot!) and another huge thank you to everyone who has followed/favourited this story, even in its first chapter. **

**Please review!**


	3. Chapter 3

For a few frozen seconds, Emma can only stare at the phone as she replays Eva's scream over and over in her head.

But then, she jumps into action.

_How dare they_, she thinks, as she runs up a flight of stairs to the room where she sleeps with five other girls. _How dare they hurt her sister_. She flings her meagre belongings into a rucksack before creeping back downstairs and going to the kitchen. There's nothing much in the fridge- only a few empty beer bottles and a loaf of bread, but she shoves everything edible into her bag and then heads into the hall.

Now for the tricky part.

Her foster parents keep the money from their monthly compensation cheques in their study. They'll be out right now- its ten o'clock at night and they're probably off playing poker with their buddies- so there's no danger of running into them. The only real problem is that the study is locked.

That's nothing to her, though.

She pulls out a hairpin and starts working on the lock, listening for the faint _clicks_ as the tumblers fall into place. She's learnt this trick from another girl who she'd lived with for a few months whose parents were professional thieves.

In return, Emma had taught her how to knock people out.

They'd had fun practising it on the others.

Finally, the lock gives way, and she eases the door open, listening for any footsteps in the house before she enters. The room is bare, except for a single desk and a few bookshelves. It easy enough to slide open the drawers and cut through the false lining she finds in one to get to the cash. Three hundred dollars. She counts it in her head, trying to calculate how long it will last her once she's out on her own.

She comes out of the study with the roll of money bunched up in her fist and glances around the empty hall as she relocks the door and shifts her rucksack to a more comfortable position on her shoulders. It's lucky her foster siblings snuck out to a party downtown. If they were home, she would never have been able to get away with half the money.

She walks out the front door and heads into the night without a backward glance.

One of the first things she does is send out word to Nicko. She hasn't taken a mobile- it'd be too easy to track. Instead, at dawn, she entices a blackbird onto her palm and gives it the directions to Nicko's foster home in the next town. The message is simple enough, and the bird will get it to her brother within a couple of days.

That's also probably the amount of time it'll take for her foster parents to realise she's missing. The other kids won't say anything for a few days. They've all tried to run away at some point or another.

And they've all been caught.

But Emma's different. She's not running for herself. She's running for her sister, and while she's lived by the world's rules for two long years, she's the daughter of Snow White and the Prince, and this is not her world. It doesn't matter that in six months she can be out of the system. It doesn't matter that in that time she can get custody of Nicko and Eva if she saves up enough. None of it matters, because for those six months, Eva will be going through who-knows-what at the hands of those monsters, and that's not something she can allow.

She walks through the day, trying not to think of what already could have happened to Eva in the time since she'd called, in the time since she'd waved goodbye two years ago. Occasionally, she stops to rest or to eat a bite of the bread she'd stolen. It's not the worst she's had. She remembers a home she was sent to about two years ago where the only food she ever got was out of the leftovers bin in the kitchen. The stale bread is way better than that.

She sleeps on park benches or curled up next to dumpsters, and she makes sure that her clothes remain relatively clean and that she looks older than she actually is. She uses buses and hitches rides wherever she can, and even though she knows it's stupid and risky, she checks the board outside a police station she's walking past to see whether they've reported her missing yet. They haven't, which she takes as a sign to start moving faster.

At dawn on the fourth day, three days after she'd sent Nicko the message, she receives a reply. The bird says that he's coming as soon as he can, and that he'll use their feathery friends to fix up a meeting place and keep track of her. She thinks of trying to stop him, but she knows it's no use. He's always been determined to protect their family.

Like their father, she thinks, but brushes away the thought as soon as it appears.

On the fifth day, she's walking down an alleyway when she sees a man she vaguely recognises passed out in the back of a yellow bug. She stops and stares at him for a few minutes before it clicks.

He was on one of the wanted posters at the police station she had stopped at a couple of days ago, and his name is Neal Cassidy.

* * *

**So, what do you think is going to happen next?**

**Again, a giant thank you to all those who reviewed, followed and favourited this story. I'm really sorry I can't respond to all of you personally. **

**In answer to Marcie Gore, who had asked where Nicko's name had come from: Nicholas is one of the two or three names for Emma's might-have-been brothers that I've found floating around in fics. The most common one is Leopold, but that didn't suit my character much and plus, I liked Nicko better. I hope that answers your question. **

**Thanks for reading, and please review! **


	4. Chapter 4

Emma's first instinct is to keep walking. She's a seventeen year-old girl on the run and the man inside is a wanted criminal.

But then, she starts thinking.

For the past five days, she's been taking whatever means of transport available, and she's barely one-third of the way to her sister's town. Having a car would mean reaching Eva's foster home within a couple of days, and would make a getaway much easier.

And it's not like Cassidy could just walk into a police station and report it missing.

She knows that there are a thousand things that could go wrong with this plan, but she doesn't care. She's getting desperate. Every day she delays is another day her sister has to spend with those monsters, and also gives another opportunity for her foster parents to report her missing. A car would fix all of that.

She searches for a possible weapon in the alleyway and picks up a brick lying a few meters from the car. It's a solid weight in her hand- perfect for knocking someone out. Then she crouches behind the bug and waits for the thief inside to come out.

Twenty minutes later, she's starting to have doubts. What if Cassidy doesn't get out of the car, but simply clambers to the front and drives away? Worse, what if he reverses? He'll bang right into her, and she'll end up with a broken leg for all her trouble.

Right then, she hears something shift inside the bug.

Immediately, her senses are on high alert. He's definitely getting up- she can hear him moving about in the car. Now comes the crucial part. The thief kicks the door open and steps out, stretching. At the same time, she rises as quietly as she can.

Then she swings the brick towards his head with all her might.

At the last possible second, he grabs her hand and twists away. The brick falls from her fingers, but her leg comes up and strikes his knees right where he's balancing all his weight. He crumples to the ground, and within seconds she's on top of him, her knee on his chest, and her hand rising, ready to knock him out.

She can still save this situation. To him, she'll be some faceless, nameless girl who stole his car. He has no way of tracking her down, no way of reporting her to the police, no way of preventing her from reaching Eva. She just has to hit him hard enough.

He's looking up at her, shocked. Perhaps it's because of the fact that's he's been bested, and is about to be knocked out, by a girl five years younger than him. But there's also something else on his face. Something like recognition.

And just as her hand is about to strike his face, he blurts out something that ruins it all.

"You're Emma Swan."

Well, she thinks, there goes her whole plan.

Her hand still hits his head, but the shock of the statement has taken away most of its force so that he's still conscious, though he'll have a nasty bruise come morning. She decides to go for ignorance.

"What?" she spits out, digging her knee further into his chest as a warning for him to talk less.

He doesn't seem to get it.

"Emma Swan," he says. "Reported missing a day ago from a foster home a few towns away." He switches topics. "You're _seventeen_?"

_Yes, _she thinks, _I'm seventeen_. _Get over it_. She doesn't like where things have gone. Cassidy knows her name, and worse, knows that she's run away from a foster home. There's no way she can escape with the bug now.

She decides to play for time.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she hisses.

He looks up at her, smirking slightly. "Don't give me that stuff. I saw the poster just yesterday, and it had a great photo." He shifts a little, trying to get out from where she's got him trapped, but she just presses down harder.

After a few seconds, he starts talking again. "Look, I'm a thief too, alright? Maybe we can help each other- come to some sort of an agreement?"

Emma can't believe this. Here she is, pinning a professional criminal down in a side alley, and he's trying to make deals with her? She's not a thief, and she won't stoop to his level.

"No," she says, forcefully. "I'm not making any deals with you."

Something about her answer catches him, because his expression twists, and the next thing she knows is that he's twisting out from under her faster than she could have thought possible, and then he's on his feet; but she's jumped up too, and it's evenly matched again.

And it's only then that she sees that he's somehow got the brick clenched in his fist.

Now Cassidy has the upper hand.

He starts backing away, and once he's a safe distance from her, he throws the brick down onto the road. Their scuffle has taken them a few feet away from where she tried to hit him, and so he's now next to the car.

She is frozen, unable to make out why he isn't going after her. No one has ever done that before. She keeps waiting for him to suddenly lunge towards her when she least expects it, but instead he merely opens the car door and gets inside while watching her closely.

Then he seems to change his mind, and he steps out again. She tenses, ready for the fight, but he merely asks her something: "What was all that about anyway? You come up behind me and try to knock me out, and then even after you've seen that I've recognised you, you continue fighting. But you could've taken my offer. Maybe, we could have come to a truce. So _why_ did you fight? What were you fighting for?"

Maybe it's the shock at being asked the question or maybe it's the adrenaline that's still pumping through her veins, but an answer slips out from between her clenched teeth.

"For my family."

Cassidy's expression changes, becoming softer, but that doesn't stop him from finally getting into the bug and starting its engine. Right as he's driving past her, he rolls down his window and says six words.

Then he drives away, leaving her to stand there, alone, in the alleyway as his answer echoes in her ears.

_Sometimes your family isn't worth it._

For the first time in two years, she lets herself cry.

* * *

**Sorry for the delay, but I hope you liked my twist on Emma and Neal's meeting.**

**Thank you for all the kind reviews, follows and favourites. **

**Please review!**


	5. Chapter 5

For the next two days, Emma walks. She doesn't think. She doesn't stop. She just puts one foot in front of another, each step bringing her closer to Eva.

Her foster parents have definitely registered her missing. There are a few posters that she comes across while she's walking, but she's already so far away from her foster home that she doubts anyone will be looking for her in this city. Even so, she pulls up her hood and tucks her hair back into its folds.

For some time, she contemplates dyeing her hair. She could pull it off by doing it in a washroom in some out-of-the-way store where no one would notice if she entered a blonde and exited a brunette. Eventually though, she decides against it. As much as she denies feeling that way, her hair is one of the only things she has to remember her parents by, and she'll put off changing it for as long as possible. Maybe once she's got Eva, she'll do it for a better disguise.

It's at night on the second day, when she's curling up on a bench and counting her money- she's got just over two hundred bucks left- that she receives a message from Nicko. The tiny bird her brother sent is clearly tired. It's struggling to stay awake, its wings drooping as it tells her what he said, so she gives it some of the bread she managed to get from a convenience store before letting it fall asleep in a tree a few metres away. Then she goes over what it said.

Nicko escaped from his foster home. He's doing well, and he's only a town behind her. Apparently, he got out three days after she did, which means he's been on his own for four days now.

There's a sting of guilt as she thinks about this. How is she protecting her family by letting her fourteen year-old brother fend for himself on the streets? How is she protecting her family if she can't even get a stupid car from a B-grade thief to reach her sister?

She's back at Cassidy.

Emma mentally scolds herself, trying to make her thoughts go anywhere else. Pizzas, swords, curses- anywhere but that.

It doesn't work.

She can't get over the fact that he let her go. He had the advantage. He could have taken his revenge for her trying to knock him out. Anyone else would have done it.

But, no. He had to back away, he had to say those terrible, terrible words.

_Sometimes your family isn't worth it._

And the truth is that those words affected her so deeply because that's what she's been thinking her parents felt about Eva and Nicko and her for almost three years.

That they weren't worth it.

They had an amazing family- the best in any world, but no. Snow White and Prince Charming weren't happy with that. They wanted a _kingdom. _That's why they left her and her siblings. That's why they couldn't leave it alone till her twenty-eighth birthday. They didn't care enough about their kids to even think about the fact that if something happened to them on their trip, the three of them would be alone in the world.

But then she pulls pack from that train of thought. She doesn't need to think about them. Right now, all she needs to concentrate on is finding her sister. After she's got her, the three of them will run away somewhere. She can change her name if she has to. Maybe they'll live in the forests.

But, for now? Eva is all that matters.

And then she falls asleep.

She's woken up by a policeman tapping on her shoulder.

He's asking her something, but she can't hear him. She stands up and blinks wildly; all she can think is _they've caught me_ and_ I'm sorry Eva_, and that she's a miserable excuse for a sister. But wait- he isn't taking her into custody. He's asking for her name.

Relief floods through her. This cop mustn't have seen the posters. Even as she relaxes, she scrambles for an answer and rattles off the first one that comes to mind.

"Ella White."

It's a weird name, she knows, but it's the best she could come up with having woken up seconds ago. The officer doesn't seem convinced, or maybe he _has_ seen the flyers, because now he's asking what she's doing on the bench.

And now she's stuck. She can't say she's homeless- if she does, he'll take her to a shelter where they'll ask for her ID, and her cover will be blown sky high. She definitely can't tell him the truth. She's just about to drop it all and make a run for it when a pair of arms encircles her from behind, and a familiar voice says, "That's all right, officer. She's with me."

Neal Cassidy. She's surprised by the security she feels in his arms, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to bodyslam him into the pavement. How did he end up here? And why is he helping her?

She has dozens of thoughts whirling around in her head, but she can't let the cop see any of them, so she gives an easy grin, lets her head lean back into his neck, and says, "Can you believe that it took him so long to pick me up?"

The policeman seems placated, because he frowns and turns away. They keep up the charade until he's out of sight, and then she whirls on him, hissing "What are _you_ doing here?"

He frowns. "I just saved you. I wasn't kidding about that agreement."

Then he does something that surprises her even more. He tosses her a set of keys and starts walking towards a corner where she can see the yellow bug parked. He turns once he's halfway there to check if she's following him, and when he sees that she's still rooted in place, he says: "How 'bout this, okay? No agreements right now. You can drive us wherever you want to go, and we can talk afterwards. If I try anything, you have full permission to use your whole ninja-turtle thing on me. Sound good?"

She stares at the keys in her hand, and then she stares at him.

_Win, win_, she thinks.

She walks to the car and gets in.

He gets in beside her and holds out his hand. "I'm Neal Cassidy. Care to reintroduce yourself?"

She shakes his hand and feels a small smile forming on her lips.

"I'm Emma. Emma Swan."

* * *

**Thanks for reading.**

**Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

Emma drives till the edge of town before she tells Neal that she's going to continue for a few hundred miles. He doesn't seem too flustered- he just asks her to stop beside a store for a few minutes while he nabs a few candy bars for the four hour trip. She's not completely sure whether he's kidding or not, but he emerges a few minutes later with five chocolates tucked into his back pocket and a tiny keychain that he presses into her hand.

It's beautiful. A tiny metal circle with a swan engraved on both sides, glinting in the light as it swings from her hand.

"What's this?", she asks, but there's a deeper meaning, full of _why did you give this to me_ and _why are you being so kind to me_. He knows it too. But he doesn't answer it. Instead, he gives her a half-smile, avoiding all the unsaid questions and answering the one that least matters.

"Your name is 'Swan', right?"

She tips her head forward slightly in acknowledgement, but now she's getting uneasy again. She's not going to lead this thief- however kind or helpful he might be- all the way to Eva without a straight answer. No one outside her family has ever helped her without expecting something in return. She just has to figure out what he wants her to do that he can't do himself.

So she asks it to him: "Here's the thing, Neal. I appreciate everything you're doing for me, but I have to ask why. Why did you save me from that cop? Why are you helping me now? You already know that it's not likely that I'll join you in some kind of dual thief act, so what do you want in return?"

He looks a bit surprised that she managed to voice it at all, but his face soon grows serious. He's silent for a few minutes before he starts speaking.

"I spent a few years in the system too, but I ended up there _because_ I was fighting for my family. By the time I got out, there was no way I could go back home. Most of the time I didn't want to. So, yeah, I'm helping you. You have a chance to have it back, and sometimes I need to believe that people get that chance. And that's why I don't expect anyhting from you- at least, not right now."

Emma is searching his face for any sign of deceit as he says this, but there is nothing there. He actually means it. And if the price of getting to Eva sooner rather than later is that she might have to break him out of prison when he's caught in a few years time, she'll gladly pay it.

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Thank you."

She means it with all her heart.

He grins and leans back, the unnatural seriousness leaving his face. "Don't mention it." Then he points at the steering wheel and says,"Weren't we going somewhere?"

She rolls her eyes and starts the engine.

She drives flat out until they reach the outskirts of Eva's town. Neal has been quiet most of the time- except for the occasional offer of chocolate- which surprises her. She expected him to talk non-stop about his numerous heists and all the narrow escapes he's pulled off in his career. People like him usually do.

But then, he's hardly turning out to be the person she expected him to be.

She stops at the first gas station she comes across and tells him that this is where she gets off. He expression turns pensive for a few moments before he turns and looks at her as she climbs out of the bug. Then he smiles and says, "Well, goodbye, Emma."

She turns around, hoisting her backpack up onto her shoulders. This man, a complete stranger, has helped her in a way no one ever has. She's not sure if she'll ever be able to repay him. But there are no words for that, so all she gives him in reply is, "Goodbye, Neal."

Then she starts walking away.

She's gone ten steps when she hears him holler her name. She looks back at the car to see him leaning out of a window. He says, "Hey, Emma, if you ever need anything...", then he trails off like he's unsure of what to say.

She walks back to the car and leans down till her face is level with his. "You'll ambush me again."

He smirks. "Every time."

She's looking at his face, and while he means it mostly as a joke, she can see a hint of seriousness. He's unobtrusively making her a promise, one that he intends to keep. But he's a thief after all, so she's not sure how much he'll be able to help.

And because two can play at this game, she leans in and whispers,"I almost believe that."

Then she smiles and leaves.

This time, he doesn't stop her.

She walks for about two hours before she recognizes the address of district where Eva's foster home is. By the time she sees the house, it's getting dark, but that doesn't stop her from climbing into the back garden and waiting for Eva to appear at one of the windows so that she can give her a signal.

Her heart is racing. Everything depends on this moment. Once she has Eva, they'll need to make a fast getaway- but it's more than that. It's the simple fact that she's going to see her little sister after almost three years. She wonders how Eva will have changed, and though her mind shies away from it, she wonders how much damage the monsters in the house have done to her sister. The very thought fills her with boiling anger, so she concentrates instead on forming an escape plan.

She doesn't have to wait long.

Suddenly, she sees Eva's face at the top floor window. Her breath catches, and her first thought is _she's so beautiful. _It's true. In the two years spent in the system, Eva seems to have blossomed from the tiny ten-year old she used to know into a miniature replica of their mother. _The fairest of them_ _all_, she thinks with a twist to her mouth.

But then, her sister limps away from the window and Emma sees the awful truth.

Framed in the light coming from inside the room, Emma can see the dark bruises that line Eva's arms and the freshly bleeding cut on her knuckles as she pulls down the blinds.

And her heart literally _stops_.

She can't bear this. She wants to rush into the house and cut everyone who dared do this to ribbons, burn them on coals, make them regret they ever had the nerve to live.

She wants to _punish_ them so bad that it hurts.

But she can't. Not right now. Because if she does, she'll be caught and Eva will never be free.

So she sits there, rocking back and forth in the shadows, trying to stop herself from doing anything rash, as her sister sleeps mere mteres away in a world without hope.

* * *

**I'm sorry for the delay- I had a bit of a problem with where this story was going. Hopefully that's fixed now. ****I'm planning to do a chapter from Snow's POV within the next few chapters. Do you think I should do it?**

**A special thank you to everyone who has responded in any way (faves, follows, reviews) to this story, and also to all the lurkers. Thank you for your dedication to this story.**

**Thanks for reading.**

**Please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

Emma manages to wait for about three hours. It's all she can do. It's probably a little after one o'clock when she finally slips across the yard and onto the back porch. She pulls out a pin from her hair, and it takes barely a minute of jiggling it around in the lock before she hears a definitive _click_. She holds her breath as she nudges the door open.

It's a risk coming even at this time. She's lost count of the number of times she stayed up till dawn when she was in foster care. There's an equal chance that a few kids in this house will be doing that too- maybe for the fun of it or maybe to get some time to recover from whatever horrors have been inflicted on them during the day. And she can't discount the late night parties where all the kids drank from their foster parents' stash upstairs while the adult in question lay passed out on the couch.

But it seems she's safe for now. She's checked all the rooms downstairs, and there's no sign of anyone awake. Just in case, she slips on a faded grey hoodie she finds crumpled on a chair before she heads upstairs. If it belongs to someone living here, it might make her hard to recognise as an outsider on the off chance that she's seen.

She pads upstairs as quietly as she can while trying to get her bearings. Eva's window was near the top of the house- probably the attic. If that's the case, she'll have to look for a side door, or maybe one of those sliding ladders that her old house had. At the end of the corridor, she finds what she's looking for. There's a small staircase that leads up into what can only be Eva's room. Emma tiptoes up, and is stopped short at the sight of the five tiny sleeping forms that are huddled in the corners under piles of moth-eaten blankets.

She tries to prevent her anger from boiling over. All these kids deserved better than this mess. She wants to wake them up and take each and every child away from this horrible life. But she can't. She's here for Eva. Anything else could put them both in danger.

She scans the room, trying to identify her sister in the darkness, when something catches her eye. At first glance, all she can see of one huddled form is a pile of blankets. But when she looks again, she sees a few stray locks of black hair tumbling down from the edge of the covers. Her breath catches. _Eva_. She rushes over, trying to make as little noise as possible, and pulls the cloth down.

It's her.

Emma stares at her sister for a few minutes, taking in her face. She traces the bruise that is just healing on Eva's chin. She notices the way the twelve-year-old no longer sleeps with a small smile, the way her hands clutch tightly at the blanket like its protection from more than just the cold. She takes in everything, every moment that she's missed over the past two years, every moment that their parents have missed.

And then she wakes her up.

Eva's eyes open slowly, but once she sees someone leaning over her, she starts to scream. Emma clamps a hand over her mouth before she can get a sound out and stares into her sister's haunted eyes.

They stay like that for a few seconds, with Eva staring brokenly up at her like she can't believe she's here, like this is just another dream from which she will eventually have to wake up.

"Shh," she finally whispers, taking her hand away and pulling her sister close like she used to do in another life. "It's me."

Eva's eyes widen and she chokes out a sob before falling into her sister's embrace.

"Emma?"

Emma smiles as best as she can through teary eyes. "Yeah. I'm going to get you out of here."

It doesn't take much time for Eva to pack her meagre belongings. Emma watches as she flits around the room while gathering her clothes, seeming more alive with every step. There isn't time for conversation, so they hug briefly before Emma leads the way down the stairs. It takes longer for Eva to follow her-she's limping, and Emma has to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from marching into Eva's foster parent's room and seeing just how much they liked being at the receiving end of such torture. She restrains herself, though, and offers Eva a small smile after telling her to wait near the back door. Then she walks into the kitchen to steal some food.

The problem? Someone's already there.

A man is standing next to the counter in the dark, trying to pry open a bottle with the tip of a knife. She starts to back away, but he catches the movement out of the corner of his eye. The hoodie she's wearing doesn't help at all. The second he sees her, he's advancing in her direction, waving the knife threateningly.

"Whatya doin' in my house, darling?" He says drunkenly, and she can see the menace lurking in his eyes. She steps back, but he raises the knife and swipes at her with the cold gleaming metal so fast that it's a silver blur, and suddenly she's in another time.

_She's twelve years old. Her father is practising with her, parrying her blows as she swipes with her wooden sword. The polished wood gleams in the light as they move back and forth across the field. She's never able to hit him, no matter how hard she tries to get past his defences. Finally tired out, she slips down onto the grass of the meadow and lies on her back, staring at the evening sky. Her father sits down next to her and they stay like that for a while, sharing a companionable silence. After a few minutes, she rolls over on her stomach and asks, "Will I ever be as good as you?"_

_And her father grins down at her and ruffles her hair. "One day- and that day isn't too far off- you'll be better than I ever was. No one will be able to defeat you."_

_She smiles back, imagining it. "Yeah, and then I won't ever get hurt because I'll be the best."_

_He laughs with her, and then grows more serious. "That's why we're doing this, Emma. So that you won't ever get hurt."_

_She believes him. _

Emma's jolted back into the present just in time to feel the knife bury itself in her skin.

* * *

**Again, I apologise for the delay.**

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	8. Chapter 8

_Pain._

For a single instant, that's all she registers.

Then he pulls the knife out, and she doubles over, screaming. It's _agony_.

Through the pain, she remembers Eva waiting in the other room, and the thought of this man getting to her brings her world back into focus. She stumbles backwards and bangs into the counter, trying to get a moment's reprieve.

_Breathe_, she tells herself. _You can do this._

She presses a hand to her stomach and straightens. The movement causes a spasm that almost brings her to her knees, but she stays upright.

_Eva_, she tells herself._ You're not just doing this for yourself anymore_. Her vision tinged red, she looks at the man, ignoring the searing pain. He's standing at the other end of the kitchen with a crazed expression in his bloodshot eyes. The blood-stained knife twirls mesmerizingly in his hands as he leans back and stares at her like he's trying to figure out whether it's worth the effort to finish her off.

"You wan' more, don't you, darling?"

The anger Emma feels helps her block out the last of the agony. This is the man that Eva had to deal with for a full year. If it's the last thing she does, she'll make sure that he'll never go near her sister again. Keeping her hand over the injury, she shuffles towards the doorway and blocks as much of it as she can with her body. Without taking her eyes off the man, she twists her head slightly and yells, "Run, Eva!"

Two things happen then. The first thing is that she hears a door open in the other room. The second is that the man's expression hardens before he charges at her again. She manages to catch the hand holding the knife an inch before it would have killed her, despite the fact that doing so sends another wave of near unbearable throbbing across her torso.

And now it's a battle of strength. He pushes the knife forward and she tries to prevent him. The tip of the knife hovers above her, sometimes a foot away from her skin and sometimes a hair's breadth away from killing her outright. But she's weakening fast. Her vision is going white around the edges and she's getting dizzy with blood loss.

_At least Eva got away_, she thinks.

And now it's the end. She knows she can't hold on for a second longer. He knows it too, and his drunken expression turns triumphant as he brings the knife down for the last time.

She refuses to close her eyes.

And because of that, she's able to see the explosion of glass on the side of the man's head mere seconds before he would have killed her.

His eyes roll back and he slumps sideways, unconscious.

Behind him stands Eva, her expression wild. In her hands she holds what remains of the glass bottle the man had been opening when Emma entered the kitchen. The rest of the bottle lies shattered on the carpet in a circle around her former foster parent.

"Are you alright?" Eva whispers.

Emma coughs weakly, her wound twinging painfully. While her head is still spinning slightly, she's pretty sure that she heard Eva leave the house a few minutes ago. "I'm fine," she says. "How did you get back in?"

Eva gestures vaguely to an opened window beside the stove, but her attention seems to be fixed on the unconscious figure on the floor.

"I hate him," she whispers.

Emma stares up at her little sister. Eva's face seems to hold decades of pain and suffering. She's no longer the little girl she waved goodbye to. Emma wants to say so much to her, about how they'll be alright, how she's so proud of her, how she's so, so sorry for this horrible mess, but she doesn't have the strength anymore. So she simply says: "I know."

Eva's face softens. She runs to a cabinet and pulls out some painkillers, antiseptic and gauze as Emma slides down to sit on the floor. As she's fixing up the wound, Eva mumbles, "I didn't just hate him for the rest. I hate him because he made me enjoy doing that- knocking him out."

Emma surprises herself by saying, "Mom and Dad would be proud of you." A second later, she regrets that the words ever came out of her mouth. Eva's expression has only become sadder. Plus, since when did Emma care about what her parents' opinion would be?

The wound is feeling much better now, so she changes the subject. "Why isn't anyone coming downstairs to investigate?"

Eva finishes cleaning the gash and replies, "No one dares to when he's here." She rolls up the bandages, stuffs them into her bag, and gives her the painkiller. "You're really lucky he didn't hit anything major." Emma swallows the tablet dry, wrinkling her nose at the bitter aftertaste left in her mouth. "Is that feeling better?"

Emma nods and pushes herself back up. "The medicine will kick in soon enough. Let's go."

They raid the larder and then leave.

They walk for hours. Every breath hurts, but she tries not to show it. Eva's limp is becoming worse with every mile. Emma knows that they'll have to rest soon. Both of them are bone-deep tired, and Eva's expert help hasn't changed the fact that she's lost a lot of blood. It's a miracle she's still standing, but at this point she's running solely on adrenaline. They finally make it to the train station, where they settle down in an empty cargo car to catch a few hours' sleep.

Around dawn, Emma is woken up by movement. The train is leaving. She blinks sleepily and runs her fingers over the bandages. The wound is feeling better than she would have believed possible yesterday. As the train picks up speed, she glances over at Eva, who's still sleeping, and then notices a flash of colour near the top of the car. It's a bluebird. Emma smiles up at it and calls it down onto her hand.

"Let Nicko know where we're headed," she tells the bird. It chirps its assent before flying out into the slipstream of the train where it's buffeted by the strong winds for a few seconds before it breaks free.

Emma watches until its nothing but a tiny speck in the sky before shifting Eva so that her head is in her lap. She strokes her sister's hair and watches as the fields slip by.

_I found you_, she thinks.

And maybe it's because of the amount of blood she's lost, but she swears she can hear her parents asking her: _Did you ever doubt you would?_

She leans against the car door and looks on as the sun breaks through the clouds on the horizon.

_No,_ she tells their ghost-voices._ I didn't_.

* * *

**So I know this chapter got a little dark, but the characters decided where the story went, not me.**

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	9. Chapter 9

Two days later, they get off the train at Augusta.

The journey has given them some much needed time to recover. Emma's wound has healed much better than she would have thought possible, and the skin around the gash has closed to form an ugly scar. It's still painful to walk, but at least she can do so without wanting to curl up on the ground and scream. Eva's limp has almost disappeared, and the bruises that had lined her arms have mostly faded away. She tries to help Eva as much as she can, but Eva brushes it off by saying that Emma's more messed up than she is.

They laugh at that. They laugh at other stuff too- things remembered from when they were younger, a rare moment of happiness stolen in the years in the system, the tiny five year-old who waves at them excitedly from her townhouse window- and they draw strength from each moment together.

Once they're off the train, they take stock of their supplies. They have clothes, a coat apiece, enough food to last them two more days, and almost two hundred bucks. Emma knows they'll have to manage, but she can't help but shiver at the thought of staying on the run through winter. Hopefully she can find a place where they've _not _put up posters of both of them for all to see before it comes to that.

They hide out in the outskirts of Augusta for a week. On a couple of nights, she manages to get a gig as an errand girl or a waitress for an absentee at a local firm, but it's nothing permanent, and eventually, they retreat into the woods. They know the forest; they know how to get food and how to cover their tracks.

It's the morning after their first day in the woods when Emma wakes up to the sound of someone stoking the small fire they had built. It's not Eva- her sister's still sleeping a foot away from her. Immediately, she tenses, and grabs the nearest fallen branch as unobtrusively as possible before jumping up and lunging at the intruder.

Thin and gaunt, a hooded figure nimbly jumps away from where it's sitting by the fire as the wood cuts through the empty space left behind. Once it's a safe distance away, the intruder raises its hands and pulls down the hood of its jacket.

Then he tilts back his head and grins at her with their father's eyes.

"Nicko," she breathes.

"Hey, Em."

The branch slips out of her nerveless fingers.

_It's Nicko_.

Her brother. She runs her eyes over him, taking in the dark circles under his eyes and the way his tattered clothes hang loose on his thin frame. Being on the run has taken its toll on him too. _He's fourteen now_, she thinks. And it shows; he's as tall as her now- when did _that_ happen- and the endless enthusiasm he used to have as a kid has been replaced by a constant wariness. But no matter how much he's changed, she's glad to see him.

"How did you get here?" is the first thing that comes out of her mouth. Immediately, she wants to take the words back. Her brother is _here_, after years of being apart from his family, and the first thing she says to him doesn't even begin to make up for what he's been through. Something like _It's good to see you_ would have been better. But it looks like he's understood her unspoken words because he smirks slightly before sitting down in front of the fire and saying: "It's good to see you too."

Her heart warms at that, and she settles down beside him while keeping an eye on Eva on the other side of the clearing.

He's silent for a few seconds before he answers her question. "I got here by following the birds. The ones you sent. They helped me loads; some of them knew useful stuff like good hiding places or which trains were always empty. A few actually guided me here. The last one you sent - the little blue one- was an absolute control freak. Didn't let me cross the road without making sure that I was going in the right direction down to the nearest degree."

She snorts at that, and then they sit in silence for a few minutes, staring at the dying embers and remembering happier times when they could talk to birds merely for the fun of it.

Eventually, he turns and asks her, "Why didn't you wait? You could've come for us in a few months and we'd all be free without having to be on the run. I mean- not that I'm complaining. It just wasn't that long."

"I couldn't wait," she replies. "Not with what they were doing to Eva." She tries to push away the memory of her sister's haunted face on that night, the way her bones stuck out from underneath her skin, the bruises that marred her arms. It doesn't work. Her hand creeps up to the knife wound at her side, checking for the ever-present dull throbbing that the pain has subsided to. _I made the right decision_, she tells herself, remembering the feel of the steel sliding into her flesh. _If they could do this to me, who knows what they would've done to Eva in the next few months. _

Nicko's face turns dark. "How bad is she?"

"She's much better now," Emma says, not wanting to tell him how bad it _actually_ was. "You should wake her up- she'll be really excited to see you."

He smiles at the prospect and gets up, brushing the leaves off his jeans. Before he heads in Eva's direction though, he stops and looks back at her with an expression she can't quite make out.

"Mom and Dad. Are we going to look for them?"

_Oh_. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to _think_. She sees her mother laughing, framed by the light coming in through the window. She sees her father, exhausted after a hard day's work, reading them stories late into the night to chase away their fears. She sees years and years- a lifetime's worth- of happiness.

And then it's all torn away. In its place, she sees her foster parents, yelling and complaining and treating her like she's nothing- just another way of roping in some cash. She sees the older kids picking on her, some of the boys coming dangerously close to her fifteen year-old face. They come nearer and nearer until it's too close and the memory stops. She sees all the moments she's tried not to think about, tried not to remember during her years in the system. She had convinced herself that she was strong, that nothing could hurt her, that she could move past all the bad parts. She had closed herself off and walled herself up. All because of them. All because of what their parents did.

And she recognises Nicko's expression. His face holds hope and love and longing, but it also holds a twisted hate, an anger that runs deep and hot and dangerous.

She feels it too.

Maybe she wants to search for them. Maybe she wants to be someone's daughter again. Or maybe she wants to forget all about them and not spend every day desperately hoping and praying that they'll find their way back to their parents only to break a little more with every failed attempt. Emma's already done enough of that.

"I don't know," she whispers.

Nicko nods, his face sombre, before heading over to Eva and gently shaking their little sister awake.

"Hi Eva," she hears him say. "Guess who's come home to his family."

* * *

**Thank you for the amazing response to the last few chapters. I appreciate each and every one of you for reading this story. **

**PS: Snow's POV will be within the next couple of chapters.**

**Again, thanks for reading.**

**Please review!**


	10. Chapter 10

They spend the next five months on the move.

They never stay at one city for more than a fortnight, slipping out into the countryside as soon as a whisper of suspicion reaches their ears.

Their time in the city is spent gathering supplies and earning money. Nicko hangs out with other boys and takes up a few of their jobs in exchange for a share of the cash. She finds it more difficult to earn money, but now and then she gets a break, taking out trash from a seedy restaurant or filling in at a part-time job for a fellow foster kid. With their combined efforts, they manage to rake up a couple dozen bucks per town. It's not enough, she knows, and so sometimes they have to resort to shoplifting. Nothing big- a loaf of bread here, a roll of bandages there, but every time she slips an item into her pocket she feels a flash of guilt, accompanied by a memory. Neal Cassidy. The one person who helped her, who stole for her, and who asked for nothing in return. He seems to be everywhere- in the pack of chocolates that Nicko manages to steal, in the swan-shaped keychain that hangs from a slender thread around her neck. Sometimes, she even thinks that she sees a yellow bug parked around a corner, but as soon as she reaches the spot, there's nothing there.

_You're seeing things_, she tells herself sternly after it happens for the fifth time. _Get over the guy; he's probably halfway to Canada by now._

And so she does what she does best_. _She wraps up her feelings and pushes them back to the furthest corner of her mind. She runs away from what she can't deal with. And life goes on.

As soon they suspect someone has recognised the three of them, they run back into the forest. For a couple of days, they stay deep in the woods in case someone sends out a search party. But no one does, and they eventually emerge from the heart of the forest.

Emma likes this life. She loves the feel of the long-dead leaves crunching underneath her feet as they tread silently through the trees. She treasures the cold nights when they huddle up close to a smokeless fire and tell ghost stories while eating the day's catch.

There is no shortage of food. She fashions a rudimentary bow and a handful of arrows using a whittling knife while Nicko and Eva set up snares. They collect berries and nuts and dandelions, and feast on the woodland creatures she shoots through the eye. They spend their time as they like; there is nothing holding them to their old life. They walk, they play, they fight. The three of them practice their skills daily, taking turns with the bow and having mock swordfights using firewood.

With every day away from the world, they heal. They become nothing more than two girls and a boy romping through the woods with no care in the world. No past. No future. Just the present: the scent of the fallen pine needles, the laughter that echoes through the trees, the deathly quiet before they make a kill.

One day, Eva comes up to her while she's stitching up one of their old coats in preparation for the approaching winter.

"Em?"

"Hm?" she replies. She's never been good at needlework, and this particular coat seems rather bent on falling apart.

"Do you ever wonder..." Eva falters and then starts again. "Do you ever wonder whether it was all real?"

Emma doesn't understand what she's talking about, and her expression must show it because Eva opens her mouth nervously for a few seconds before stammering out: "I mean... were Mom and Dad really... Snow White and Prince Charming? Were all the stories actually real?"

And Emma has to put the needle down for a few seconds before answering, because however much she blames her parents, _hates_ them for abandoning her, she has never questioned the truth of what they said. They are- _were_- Snow White and the Prince. They used to rule over two kingdoms in the Enchanted forest before it was ripped away from them by the Evil Queen's curse, and they escaped from it only hours before she was born by stepping into a magical wardrobe that brought them to this world. That is their story. That is who they are. Anyone who didn't believe her when she was young was simply _not in the know_. A few metres away, Nicko stops skinning the squirrel he's holding and looks at her, an unreadable expression on his face.

She turns back to Eva.

"Yes," she tells her little sister. "They were real."

But from that day onwards, the doubt starts to grow. What if her parents' stories were just figments of their imagination woven into an intricate pattern that seemed like the truth? What if it was all a lie?

Whatever she says to Eva, Emma no longer _believes_ like she used to.

Five months after Augusta and a couple of weeks away from the latest town, something happens. According to the map they have, they're miles away from the nearest civilization. They're walking a few metres away from the road, careful not to lose sight of the familiar grey tarmac in the underbrush when she takes a single step- just like any other of the thousands she's taken while trekking through the forest- when something changes. Something's different. There's a shift in the air; Eva and Nicko feel it too and tense beside her, ready to run.

And then-

_Agony._

There's an explosion of pain in her side, right where the months-old knife wound has left a scar. It's as if the knife has plunged into her stomach again, the cold metal twisting inside her, ripping her apart from within. She can't see. She can't breathe. She manages to get up and stumble the few metres to the road before collapsing again, overwhelmed with pain.

Above her, Nicko and Eva are shouting frantically, but she can't hear them. There's a ringing in her ears that blocks out all coherent thought.

She's slipping. Her consciousness is slowly fading away. Her head lolls to one side and she sees something that shouldn't be there.

It's a town sign. The flowing letters are hard to make out, but she tries to focus, to hold on to anything that can keep the white-hot pain flaring at her side from pulling her down into the darkness.

She glares at it through tear-dashed eyes. _Concentrate,_ she tells herself. _You have to get up; you have to take care of your family. _But it doesn't work. She's less _here_ with every passing second. Any moment now, she'll be gone altogether.

She finally manages to make it out. She's hanging on to consciousness by the slimmest thread, defying the darkness against all the odds, but at least she can read the blasted sign.

'Welcome to Storybrooke' it says.

The thread breaks.

In the distance, she can hear the wail of a police siren, but she doesn't care anymore. She closes her eyes.

And then the darkness takes her.

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next one won't be for a few days.**

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**Please review!**


	11. Chapter 11

Feelings. Fragments.

They flicker across the void into which she's fallen, and she scrabbles towards them, trying to hold on to them with all her strength. But then they slip through her fingers and fade into the darkness, leaving nothing behind.

There's one thing that stays. The pain. It's an all-consuming monster that looms over her, tearing viciously at her side. Even when she's unconscious, there's no escape.

After an eternity, her world comes back into focus. She's on something soft- a stretcher, she realises after a second- and being rapidly carried through the sterile white corridors of a hospital. A huge red stain is spreading across her grey top. She gingerly fingers it and nearly cries out at the spasm that runs through her body in reply. Eva and Nicko hurry in front of her, their features taught with tension. They answer questions from the harried nurses with repeated _I don't knows, _which only serve to frustrate the adults further.

_Neither do I_, she thinks through the haze. All she remembers before blacking out is suddenly collapsing with pain, but she has no idea why it happened. There will be enough time to think about it later, she tells herself.

Hopefully.

She doesn't have the strength to speak, so she reaches out a weak hand, straining to let them know that she's awake. Eva notices out of the corner of her eye and rushes to Emma's side, her eyes filling with tears.

"You're going to be alright, Em."

Emma manages to nod. She's completely drained of strength- all she wants to do is to fall into the soft folds of the darkness again. The stabbing at her side is worse than ever. If she wasn't so weak, she would be screaming in agony.

Nicko, still running in front of them, spares a single glance her way. His eyes are dark- darker than she's ever seen them before- and there's a freshly bleeding cut on his forehead that he seems not to have noticed. Reading her expression, he nods.

"I'll take care of her," he promises.

_Thank you_, she says silently.

The doctors allow her siblings to accompany her for a few more minutes as they rush through the hospital. With a flash of terror, Emma sees that Eva's limping again and the bruises on her arms have reappeared. _What happened while I was out? _Suddenly, the two nurses are blocking Nicko and Eva from following her, saying, "You can't come further than this."

Emma's taken past them, unable to say a last goodbye.

She cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of their faces, but instead, she sees something else. A glass room, a beeping monitor, an eerily familiar face- but no, it can't be him; the pain must be making her hallucinate.

And then she's carried into the emergency room, and the doors shut behind her with a resounding bang.

"She's conscious," the doctor says as he adjusts his mask.

The assistant only nods in reply before prepping for the surgery, taking out silver instruments that glint cruelly in the harsh light from above.

"Well Emma," the doctor says, and she feels another wave of terror- _they know her name_. He doesn't seem to notice it, ploughing on with his talk as if she was someone he met on the road and not a patient in critical condition. "You've got some internal haemorrhaging which we'll have to stop using an open surgery. You're lucky that it's not as severe as we initially thought, but you'll still need a strong general anaesthetic."

_At least if I'm given up to the police, I'll still be alive_, she thinks wryly.

The surgeon looks at her, a syringe in his hand. "This won't take long at all, Emma. There's no reason to panic."

She nods to show that she understands. _Give it to me_, she says silently. _Make the pain stop_.

As if in answer to her plea, the needle slides into her arm and she drifts away.

As she drifts, she dreams.

Her surroundings are not black this time. They are a misty grey that cradles her in its embrace. Out of the fog, a memory emerges.

_Hot panting breaths. Running. The pounding of three pairs of feet on the cracked sidewalk. The familiar old throbbing at her side. She's in the lead, scouting out a place to hide, half-carrying, half-dragging Eva, who is almost dead with exhaustion. It's past midnight, and dawn is still four hours away. None of them have slept for almost forty hours straight. Nicko is some distance behind the two of them, his drawn face haggard as he weaves crazily through the abandoned train yard, trying to confuse their pursuers with the sound of his shoes against the hard ground. _

_Eva stumbles, her feet catching on a jagged piece of brick that lies in their path. Emma lifts her up onto her feet again._

_"Just a little further," she murmurs to her sister. "Nicko's leading them in circles."_

_Eva nods, too winded to respond. Looking at her tired face, Emma feels a stab of guilt. She's risked all of them barely a month after they left Augusta. Two men, who at first only seemed to be interested in her, have been following them for the better part of the night. When the three of them finally managed to slip into the train yard to hide, the men started chasing them outright. She's punishing herself for letting Nicko take the most dangerous job, but she pushes it back. _Run now, think later_, she tells herself. _

_Finally, she spots an old compartment with its door hanging open. She hustles Eva inside as quietly as she can and then hides in the shadows beside the car, waiting for Nicko to come their way. _

_For a few minutes, there is nothing._

_And then suddenly, out of the deathly quiet, she hears him cry out in pain._

_All thoughts of safety go out of the window. She runs in the direction of the sound, dodging the old train parts that loom out of the darkness. She has to find him. She can handle the people chasing them; she can handle everything else- she just has to find him. Tearing into a relatively clear area, she spots a figure lying on the ground. There's no one nearby. Heart hammering, she jogs over to the person and flips him over gently._

_It's not Nicko._

_She's simultaneously relieved and terrified. She recognises this man as one of the people coming after them, but where did the other one- the one with those huge spectacles- go? And where's Nicko? Treading lightly now, she slips around the nearest train, searching, straining to see in the darkness. _

_From a few metres away, she hears a slight cough. Immediately, she tenses and whips around, ready to face their second pursuer. There's no one there. She heads warily in the direction she heard the sound and is finally able to make out a huddled form in the crevice formed between two engines lying next to each other. Nicko. Her face lights up, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she silently picks her way to him and then whispers, "What happened?"_

_He shakes his head tiredly. "I managed to knock the baby-faced one out. The other one ran after that. Are both of you alright?"_

_A sound of exasperation escapes her as she helps him out of the narrow space. "We're fine. Are you?"_

_"It's nothing," he mumbles, but then he staggers, his hand flying to his head._

_In the dim light, she's finally able to get a good look at him. A huge gash cuts across his forehead, blood running down his face. She stops herself from reacting, from blaming herself- from blaming him. She wants to scold him for being reckless, but he's not a kid anymore. The foster system saw to that. Besides, there's no point in yelling at him for putting himself in danger when he might collapse any minute. _

_"Let's get you to Eva," is all she says._

_He nods in assent. Both of them know after a month on the run that Eva is the best healer of the three. They head off quietly, wary of encountering the person who got away._

_Ten minutes later, Eva's nimble hands have patched up the wound better than she would have thought possible. The bleary look in Nicko's eyes has disappeared, and he's back to normal, chewing on a piece of stale bread out of the loaf they got a few days ago._

_He glances at her, reading her unspoken thoughts. "The risk wasn't for nothing, you know."_

_She shoots him a withering look._

_"I'm serious," he says. "The baby-faced one had spotted you; I had to double back and confuse him. They started following me- you got away- but they managed to catch me for a couple of minutes. They wanted you, Em. Something about a kid and a heart- they were completely crazy. Anyway, I managed to knock one of them out, but not before Spectacles had given me a hefty punch. I landed right on a metal engine piece and got this cut."_

_Seeing that her expression hasn't changed, he grows frustrated. "Look Em, you can't protect us from everything. You remember what Mom and Dad told us. They told us that you always put family first, even above yourself. That's why you broke Eva out of that place. That's why I did this. And you know what Dad's last words to me were? 'Take care of your sisters.' That's what I'm doing. I'm following you as we head from place to place with no real destination in mind. I'm putting you guys first. Are we going to keep on running for the rest of our lives? I don't know. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with whatever you decide. But if you do something that puts all of us at risk, I'm not going to just stand by and watch. I'll protect Eva, and if you can't stay out of danger, I'll do the same for you. Just don't blame me for it. "_

_She feels a flush of shame creep across her face. He's right. She got them into this mess. _

_"I'm sorry," she says._

_He leans back and closes his eyes, his expression half contrite, half determined. "I'm sorry too."_

_They settle down to sleep. Despite her exhaustion, it takes her a few minutes to relax. She glances over at her brother and thinks about his uncharacteristic outburst. _He's the one teaching me stuff now_, she thinks wistfully. He's grown up so much._

_She looks at Eva, who's lying curled up in her lap with her brother's blood staining her fingers._

_They all have._

Gradually, reality pulls at her and the memory fades away. She's on a bed. Cold, rough sheets cover her over a paper-thin hospital gown. There's a thick bandage on her side. For a brief, panic-filled moment, she doesn't remember where she is. Then it all comes back to her in a rush: walking-pain-_Storybrooke_-the-hospital- there was someone here, someone who couldn't possibly be here. She remembers catching a glimpse of a sleeping face as she was wheeled inside the OR, but the details of the memory escape her.

She opens her eyes.

Eva's in the room, her eyes red from crying. As soon as she sees that Emma's awake, she rushes over to her sister's side. Emma opens her mouth to tell Eva that she's fine, but the words Eva says are not what she's expecting: "We told them that a couple of thugs started chasing us as we were hiking through the woods, and that one of them had a knife. Otherwise, they don't know anything real apart from our names. The sheriff's going to come in to question you the minute they know you're awake."

When she doesn't respond, Eva shakes her slightly- which_ hurts _like nobody's business- and asks her, "Em, did you get that? We all need to have the same story when asked."

Finally understanding, Emma nods.

Eva's face breaks into a smile. "Nicko came up with the idea," the twelve year-old whispers. "If anyone asks what the thugs looked like, tell them about the two people who were chasing us in the train yard during the night a few months ago. You remember them, don't you?"

Emma freezes for a few seconds before finally remembering to nod her assent. Was her dream just coincidence then?

She's distracted from her thoughts by Eva, who's pressing her hand to her own. "I'm glad you're okay," her little sister says.

"Me too," she whispers, finally finding the strength to speak. "Are both of you alright?"

Eva's brow creases, and she moves to cover her arms with her sleeves. Emma sees the mark of a bruise before the cloth covers it. "We're fine," Eva mumbles, but Emma knows she's not saying everything.

Before she can ask, a nurse bustles into the room. She looks stunned to see Emma awake- maybe the drugs they're using are weaker than they think- but immediately orders Eva outside. After checking her drip and asking her a lot of routine questions, the nurse strides out again with a harried _there's no need to worry, Ms. Swan; the sheriff will be here any minute_.

True to her word, the door opens again after a few minutes and a man steps inside. He's wearing a leather jacket and has a badge pinned to his belt.

"Ms. Swan, I'm Graham, the sheriff. I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions."

She doesn't mind. She answers all his questions briefly with the story she's prepared, keeping an eye on him to see whether he believes her, and also, well, for _reasons_.

The foster system isn't mentioned. Apparently, news of three runaway siblings is deemed too important for a town that isn't on the map. She's grateful for that, and more relieved than she can ever admit to herself.

"So, to sum up," he says in his Irish accent, "You've got little money, nowhere to go, and since you are your siblings' legal guardian, I can't put them in foster care."

Wait a minute- when did she become their _legal_ guardian. Guardian, yes. She's been taking care of them for the past five months. But _legal_? At first, she assumes Nicko told them that to stop the adults from interfering- which is going to come back to them painfully when people figure out it isn't true. But then, she spots the calendar behind the sheriff.

October 23, the calendar says. Huh.

Well, she's eighteen now. If they hadn't been fugitives for the past months, she would be Nicko and Eva's legal guardian today. And since Graham doesn't know that particular fact-

"Yes," she tells him. "That about sums it up."

He shoves his hands into his pockets and is quiet for a few minutes. Then he says: "Look Ms. Swan, y'know this is an unusual situation. You can't stay at the hospital forever. Maybe a couple of days more. Your sister is too young for the homeless shelter- there's some rough types there. There is another option, but you might not like it."

She nods at him to continue.

"One of our hospital volunteers- a schoolteacher- said that she could take you three in for a few days while you fixed this whole thing and paid the hospital bills. While you're there, I'll search for relatives and a place to stay. You won't be allowed to leave town, but you can stay at her place as long as she allows it. I can personally recommend her."

She'll take it. Never mind what he's saying, she'll slip out of this teacher's house on the second day and make her way out of this town. She won't stay long enough for him to figure out she's a runaway.

She tries to keep her expression relaxed. "If it's alright with her, I'll be really grateful,"

He nods. "I'll bring her right in. She's outside just now, meeting your brother and sister."

He walks out and shuts the door behind him.

Barely a minute later, he comes back, ushering Nicko and Eva in front of him. Immediately, she can tell that something's very, very wrong. Eva's in shock- there are tears brimming in her eyes. Nicko has that closed off, guarded expression he gets whenever he's dealing with something big. Both seem to want to tell her something, but with Graham in the room, they hold back.

And then she walks into the room and her world fractures.

Hazel-green eyes. Long black hair that's been cut brutally short. A face full of gentle laughter, now lacking the spark it once had. Memories, memories, memories. She can't bear it. She can't.

"Hi Emma," her mother says softly, her eyes empty of any recognition. "I'm Mary Margaret Blanchard."

* * *

**I hope the long(er) chapter made up for the wait.**

**Any guesses at the two people chasing Emma?**

**Next up: Snow's chapter...or is it Mary Margaret now?**

**Thank you for all the lovely reviews, and thank you for simply taking the time to read my spin on the show.**


	12. Interlude: Hiding Snow White

**3 years ago**

_Emma, who's standing in the doorway, pushes her golden hair back out of her face and smiles at me reassuringly. Beside her is Eva, her green eyes wide and her expression anxious._

_"You'll be back soon, won't you?" she whispers._

_I kneel so that I'm eye level with my younger daughter and cup her face with my right hand. "Eva Redell Swan," I say firmly, a smile tugging on the corners of my lips, "believe me when I say that we'll be back in no time at all."_

_A few feet away, David has pulled Nicko to one side and is telling him something, his expression serious. Once David's done, Nicko runs over and stands beside Emma. I run a hand over his light brown hair- he's so much like his father- and ask him to do whatever the Prince told him to. David huffs out a laugh at that and pulls me close, pressing his head against my curls._

_Then I look up at Emma again; her face holds a thousand thoughts. She's sad to see us go, but she knows there's no reason to worry; we're never gone for more than a week, and she can handle the three of them for much longer than that time by herself. She's also happy in a way- like any other fifteen year-old, she loves that bit of freedom._

_"We'll stick together," she promises both of us._

_I smile at the three of them. They are amazing, they are perfect._

_But, most importantly, they are ours._

_"I know you will."_

"Snow?"

David – no, _Charming, _I remind myself- breaks the spell. I'm jerked out of the memory. He's driving our old truck with one hand on the wheel and one hand around my shoulders, and I'm leaning up against him with my legs curled up on the seat. I turn my head till my chin rests on his shoulder and stare at my husband for a few seconds.

The memory he pulled me out of was a mere two days ago, but the name he just said brings up makes me recall millions of experiences from another life. The kingdom, our castle, my mother, Red, Grumpy, Ella, the Huntsman, our first wedding, the apple, the curse, the wardrobe- everything. And it all comes back to _her_. My stepmother. The Evil Queen. Some days, it still feels like I can hear her enraged scream from down the corridor as she spots Charming helping me into the wardrobe. Other days, it all feels like it happened to someone else- like I couldn't possibly be the Snow White that children in this world adored. On those days, I find myself questioning my sanity, trying to dredge up proof that I once was a princess, that I once ruled another land.

Sometimes, I lose my grip on reality. Who was Snow White? Who is Mary? I am terrified of forgetting and afraid to remember. David helps me hold on then; he brushes away my tears and tells me that it _was_ real, that it _is_ real, that it all happened. We reminisce in the dark of the night, taking comfort in the fact that there is one other person in this world who knows who we truly are because they remember, and not because of the stories we've told them.

During the day though, we are happy. We have our family. We have Emma and Nicko and Eva and we couldn't ask for more. We tell them our stories in the hope that they remember the tales long after we have forgotten. We teach them what we know so that when the final battle comes, they are prepared.

And when the princess's guilt at punishing an entire kingdom for a single mistake threatens to overwhelm me, I bury myself in the waitress, the teacher, the woman who has Snow White's spirit, but not her life.

I've been Mary Swan for far too long.

Now that changes. For these precious few days, we are Mary and David no longer. We are Snow White and the Prince, rulers of two kingdoms in the Enchanted forest.

And if there's one thing Snow White always has, its hope.

So I smile. I lean forward and kiss Charming as best as I can with him driving- which I've never got the hang of by the way- and then pull back just in time to see his blue, blue eyes flick over to my face in surprise.

"I haven't been called that for a while," I murmur.

He smiles back easily, understanding what I'm doing and saying nothing in reproach. He's saving me in just on more little way. Like he always does, always has done since the moment I hit him in the face with a rock.

I haven't yet found a way to repay him.

"You're making it really hard to concentrate on the road," he says, and I laugh.

"Good," I whisper into his ear before giving him another light kiss on the cheek and putting an inch of space between us.

Fifteen years in an unknown land haven't changed anything for us. We could as easily be the young couple who crossed over into this world over a decade and a half ago, and only the few grey strands in his hair and mine betray the fact that we're way into our thirties.

"Could you take out the map?" Charming asks me.

I nod and slide a creased piece of paper out of the glove compartment. It's covered with crosses and question marks, each symbol representing an area which we've covered or an area that's left to be searched. They radiate out in a circle from the tree we climbed out of beside the highway, with the crosses covering much of the map to the tree's north. This year, we're going slightly to the south, despite the fact that the journey will take an extra day or two.

"We should cross the diner in the next half an hour," I tell him. "Take a right immediately after that."

He nods his assent, and we continue in silence for a few minutes before he says, "They'll be alright, Snow."

As always, I'm stunned by how well he can read me. I was worrying about the kids being by themselves, but I was also worrying about our friends from the forest, and how the curse may have affected them. Will they even remember me? And what about Red? Or Ella and Thomas? And what happened to little Alexandra, who we were all so looking forward to meeting? And will Emma manage with Nicko and Eva?

"I miss them," I mumble.

He sighs and tightens his arm around me. "I do too."

We cross the diner as the sun sets. There are no words to express what we are feeling; we are both overwhelmed by the barrage of memories that attacks us upon seeing it.

_Charming climbs into the wardrobe beside me after fending off the Queen's men and pulls it shut with one hand, clutching a wound on his shoulder with the other. I'm holding myself in agony; Emma's coming, and she's coming too soon._

_Suddenly, the door flies open and terror fills me._

The Queen is here.

_I pull out my dagger and Charming tries to cover me with his body as much as he can. But there's no one there. Instead of the walls of Emma's would-have-been nursery, we see a snow-covered wood. There are no knights, no evil stepmothers bent on revenge, no billowing curse clouds._

_There is nothing._

_"We made it," Charming breathes, and I climb out after him. He laughs out loud and kisses me in joy, and I kiss him back._

_"We did," I say. I'm simultaneously smiling and fighting back tears. Our old world is gone, but here, in this new world, we can raise Emma till she comes of age and breaks the curse. We can live without the threat of death looming over us._

_Charming and I can be together- we can stop finding each other, and simply _stay_ found._

_We are free._

_And as we help one another toward the building we see in the distance, I can't think of a better gift in the world._

The memory fades away, only to be replaced by another that is only slightly more recent.

_Two hours later, I am in the back room of the diner, crying out in pain as another wave of agony passes through me. Emma's almost here. Between contractions, tears slip down my cheeks as I thank the gods for how lucky I am. Had she come a moment sooner, we would never have made it, and Emma, beautiful Emma, who I have been waiting months to meet, would never have existed, because if there's one thing that Regina could do that would destroy all my hope, it would be to hurt my child._

_Charming sits beside me, holding my hand and stroking my hair. He had refused to leave the room when the owner of the place, a tall matronly woman, had asked him to a few minutes ago when she had left to call a doctor- whatever that happened to be._

_"You're doing so well, Snow" he murmurs. "We're going to meet her any moment now."_

_Another wave of pain racks me, and I cry out, clenching his hand. Only a few seconds later, a man strides into the room. He wears something like a white doublet, only not made of leather, and carries a case in his hand. Charming tenses, but the man merely puts the case down calmly and says, "Miss, I'm here to help you deliver the baby."_

_I nod weakly, left with no choice but to trust him. He must be this world's equivalent of a healer._

_Barely an hour later, I hear the most beautiful sound in the world. Emma is here. The man wraps up my- our- beautiful baby and takes her to a counter to check her and make sure she's alright. With Charming's help, I prop myself up and try to catch a glimpse of her._

_"How is she?" My voice is hoarse after so much screaming._

_The man -doctor- is busy measuring Emma's heart rate with a strange instrument. "She's fine," he says distractedly. "I never caught your name, Miss."_

_I tense momentarily, but then I see Red appear in the room. She says 'Frosty? Really?' in that teasing way of hers before she fades away again, and I almost laugh._

_"Mary," I tell the doctor. I've gone by the name before, after all._

_Charming catches my eye, his brow creased in confusion. He catches on quickly, though, and stands up to take Emma from the doctor._

_"I'm David," he says. "I can't thank you enough for the help you've given to my wife today."_

_David. It makes sense- no one else knew about his real name; even our closest friends only knew that he had been a shepherd once. And we need these false names, because in this world, we have to be inconspicuous, we have to blend in for twenty-eight years until our daughter breaks the curse. We can't do that if there's even the slightest risk that we may be found._

_The man smiles and hands Emma over to Charming- David, I remind myself. "Congratulations."_

_David brings our daughter over to Mary, looking at her in wonder and carrying her like she's as fragile as glass._

_I take Emma into my arms._

_She's the most perfect thing I've ever seen._

The memory slowly fades away, leaving behind a film of tears that cloud my eyes. That day, Mary and David Swan were born and Snow White and Prince Charming were hidden forever from the world.

Ten minutes after the diner, something changes. There is a subtle shift in the air- like a wave of energy has just crashed down on us and is covering us, smothering us in its folds.

"Charming, what was-"

But I'm unable to complete my question, because Charming suddenly jerks the wheel _hard_, and the car spins around violently. Through the glass and into the whirling world outside, I see a lone wolf standing in the middle of the road, right where we would have been a second ago. A millisecond later, there is the sound of splintering glass, and I'm flung outside the truck.

For a single instant there is nothing except the sound of my heartbeat and the grip of Charming's hand on my own as I fly through the air, and then _pain,_ and _where's Charming_, and the sound of an approaching car, and a laugh I swear I've heard before- I hate it, it's ruined my life- why is it here, and then I black out.

Barely a minute later, I come to.

I'm lying on the side of the road, a searing pain running across my stomach. When I manage to lever myself onto my elbows, I see a sliver of blood-stained glass lying beside me. It must have cut me when I was thrown out of the window. A few metres away, in the middle of the road, a huddled form lies on the asphalt. _Charming_. I sob in relief-_ he's safe_- and start dragging myself over to him. But wait- there's someone standing over him, a dark silhouette framed in the glaring light of the headlamps of a car parked nearby.

As I come closer, I'm finally able to make out who it is.

My heart stops.

It's _her_. Regina. The Evil Queen.

"Snow White," she says, a cruel smile twisting her lips. "So you finally decided to show up for my happy ending after all."

* * *

**I hope Snow's characterization in this chapter was good enough for you guys. Part II of Snow's POV is next. After that, the story goes back to Emma.**

**Thank you for your lovely response to the last chapter.**

**Guest: Your review made my day! If you look carefully, Emma saw her father in the chapter before this- she just didn't see him long enough to recognise him. That's why his name wasn't mentioned.**

**Thanks, as always, for reading.**


	13. Interlude: Becoming Mary Margaret

My first instinct is to lunge at her- _kill_ her. This is all her fault. She was supposed to be my _mother_. She was supposed to love me, like I thought she had for all those years while I was growing up.

But no.

One mistake when I was eight- a child, younger than my own daughters, and she's never forgiven me. She's never found it in her heart- and I know she has one, I've seen it when she talked about Daniel; I've seen it when I nursed her back to health in the forest all those years ago- to put it behind her. To understand- _she needs to understand, she was supposed to be my mother, wasn't she_- that I didn't know what I was doing.

I was a child.

She cursed us. She cursed all of us. She cursed my friends to twenty-eight years in a prison trapped in time. Even if Charming and I escaped-

_Charming._

Abruptly pulled back to the present, I crane my neck desperately to try and see him. Is he alright? Did the witch do anything to him while I was out? He's hard to make out in the glare from the car's headlights, but after a few panic-filled seconds, I'm finally able to see him clearly.

My heart stops.

I scramble over to him, all thoughts of Regina flying out of my mind. He's bad. He's in much worse condition than I am. There's a huge shard of glass sticking out of his dark blue shirt. Blood is pooling out of the  
wound, dripping onto the black tarmac and staining it red. My trembling hands try to stop the flow, but it's too much. He's dying. _Charming's dying._

"No, no, no, no," the words escape my mouth interspersed with sobs. My tears drip down onto the ground and mix with his blood as I bend down to kiss him. I remember now. As we were hurled towards the windshield of our truck, I was going to hit it first- but then suddenly, I wasn't. Charming had wrenched me back at the last second and taken the brunt of the blow himself.

He saved me. And now he's paying the price.

I cup his face and kiss him again, hoping that he'll somehow open his crystal-blue eyes and come back to life, just like I did sixteen years ago. But this isn't a fairytale anymore. And when Prince Charming doesn't wake up, I can no longer find it in myself to have hope.

We were supposed to have a happy ending.

We were supposed to find each other a thousand times over.

And now he's going to a place where I can't.

The click-clack of heels draws near. Suddenly, an ice-cold hand jerks my chin up roughly and I stare into _her_ eyes. She's let me be for the past few minutes, enjoying my suffering, but I can see from her face now that she wants more; that this is not enough. Never mind that she's already destroyed my happiness, already practically killed the man that I love, she wants to destroy _me._

"Oh, don't worry, dear," she says, her blood-red lips curved into a cruel smile. "In a few moments you won't remember you knew him, let alone loved him."

I was wrong before.

She doesn't have a heart.

Regina pulls out a tiny vial from inside her grey coat and waves it tauntingly in front of me. "A tiny piece of the curse that I saved, Snow. In case you decided to drop by because you couldn't live without all your pathetic friends and felt _guilty._" Her lip curls at the last word and she steps back.

"Welcome to Storybrooke," she says softly, almost kindly, except for a steely glint in her eyes. "It's a place where the only happy ending is mine."

She opens the vial and a violet-black smoke that I recognise all too well pours out of it and creeps towards us. I pull Charming closer to me, trying to shield him from the approaching smog, but it's no use. The smoke covers us, blinds me, and only the weight of his lifeless form in my arms tells me that my husband and I are still together.

"I love you," I tell him. A million curses couldn't change that.

As I breathe, the smoke enters my lungs and begins its work on me. I can feel the curse tugging on my memories, peeling them away from me and blocking me from reaching them with a shimmering mist. After a few seconds, I don't remember anything that happened before I was seven. I realise what it's doing, what Regina's words -_you won't even remember him_- meant. At this rate, within a few minutes I'll be a blank slate on which Regina can draw whatever she wants. She can make me a new life. She can make me into a new person. And I won't ever remember that I have three beautiful children waiting for me out in the world, that I have- _had_- Charming.

Well, that's not going to happen.

I fight the smoke. David. Charming. Emma. Nicko. Eva. I wrap their names up tight in my heart where the witch will never be able to steal them away. I love them. I remember them. I see Charming laughing before he presses his lips to mine, I see Emma, her blonde curls dancing as she practices her archery in the meadow, I see Nicko laughing as he teases his sisters, I see a young girl with raven-dark hair snuggling up to me on stormy nights, taking comfort in my presence.

No, no, no. I'm forgetting. What was the last girl's name? Something about my family, she had a name that someone in my family used to have before they died. I need to remember. She was my- who was she?

I can't remember.

For one terrifying moment, the name of the man who lies unconscious before me slips out of my mind.

Then it comes back. James. That's his name. That's who he is, isn't he?

And who am I?

I'm Sn-

I'm Mary Swan.

And after a few seconds, I'm no one at all.

I have nothing- no name, no life.

Maybe that should bother me, but it doesn't, not anymore. That's the way I've been for as long as I can remember. Whoever I am, I look up and take stock of my surroundings.

I'm huddled up on a road, crouched over a man I don't recognise. A woman stands a metre away, smiling at me. The smile means that she's my friend, doesn't it?

She comes closer and kneels down till she's eye level with me. "Close your eyes," she tells me.

I do as she says.

From the dark grey that surrounds me, memories emerge. Finally, I know who I am.

My eyes snap open.

I'm Mary Margaret Blanchard. I'm a teacher in fourth grade. I'm a volunteer at the hospital.

And I'm also getting late for class.

As I walk towards the school, I think. I've been alone for as long as I can remember, but today seems different. I'm aching inside, like a part of me is missing something that should be there.

I brush it off; I may not have the best life, but I'm happy.

And who knows; today's a new day, isn't it? Anything could happen.

I have hope.

* * *

**I had this chapter written out in my head almost from the time I wrote Ch. 3, but I had to tweak it a bit to suit how the story's changed since then. Not sure with how it's turned out...**

**Thank you for reading, and I'd love it if you could leave a review, they really make my day.**

**Happy New Year!**


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